Bonhoeffer Against the World

How did a young man with no apparent power become a hero of the faith? A new biography explains.

Timothy Larsen/ May 15, 2014

Image: Mike Benny

Our Rating

Book Title

Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Author

Charles Marsh

Publisher

Knopf

Release Date

April 29, 2014

Pages

528

Price

$26.18

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has always been one of my great heroes of the faith. Such appreciation, of course, hardly makes me distinct. Bonhoeffer, the German pastor-theologian who opposed the Nazis and was executed in a concentration camp, is passionately admired by millions of Christians.

One could even compare him to Athanasius, the defender of Christ's divinity whose brave stance also drew state persecution. The fourth-century bishop's unflinching willingness to defy even emperors and their armies was honored with the title "Athanasius contra mundum" (against the world).

Charles Marsh's welcome biography, Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Knopf), paints a painstaking portrait of a faithful disciple every bit as resolute against Aryanism as Athanasius was against Arians. Marsh's exquisite eye for detail reveals the sheer unlikelihood of Bonhoeffer's emergence as the boldest opponent of efforts to Nazify the German church.

Athanasius was bishop of Alexandria, the most powerful ecclesiastical figure in the Eastern empire. He wielded so much influence that emperors were afraid of opposing him too forcefully, lest they provoke a popular uprising.

But what power did Bonhoeffer wield in 1933? He was 27 years old, financially dependent on his parents, and virtually bereft of experience in the working world. His sole professional appointment was an unpaid, non-tenure-track position as a voluntary lecturer. Adjunct professors don't normally stand athwart emperors.

Yet Bonhoeffer did. Within weeks of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Bonhoeffer declared in public that the Führer was offering a false path to salvation—and, in private, that Hitler was an antichrist. When ...

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